THE METAPHYSICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 147
That is a further sample of the historical and de- scriptive method of M. Proudhon.
Let us now examine, from the historical and economic point of view, and see if really the workshop or the machine has introduced the principle of authority into society subsequent to the division of labor; if it has oa one hand rehabilitated the worker, while on the other subjecting him to authority; if the machine is the re- composition of divided labor, the synthesis of labor op- posed to its analysis.
Society as a whole has this in common with the interior of a factory, that it also has its division of labor. If the division of labor in a modern factory, were taken as a model to be applied to an entire society, the society the best organised for the production of wealth would be in- contestably that which had but one single master di- stributing the work, according to a regulation arranged beforehand, to the various members of the community. But it is not so. While in the interior of the modern factory the division of labor is minutely regulated by the authority of the capitalist, modera society has no other regulation, no other authority, to arrange the distribution of labor, than free competition.
Under the patriarchal régime, under the régime of castes, under the feudal and corporative régime, there was division of labor in the whole of society according to fixed regulations. Were these regulations established by a legislator? No. Originally born of the conditions of material production, it was not till much later that they were established as laws. It was thus that these various forms of the division of labor became to such an extent the bases of social organisation. As to the division of labor in the factory, it was very little developed in all these forms of society.
